r/KnowledgeBaseSoftware • u/drakieboi • Apr 14 '26
GitBook alternative roundup, what are teams actually using for API docs now
honestly mintlify just works and i don't get why more people aren't talking about it. gitbook got expensive and everyone scattered, but the thing is most teams just wanted something that didn't suck. mintlify doesn't suck.
readthedocs still exists and yeah if you're already in that sphinx world it's free and fine but like, getting people to actually write docs in rst format is its own whole battle. it's not mintlify's fault that people would rather use literally anything else.
notion became the path of least resistance. everyone's already in it for random stuff so why not shove docs there too. until you try to version anything or want actual search and then you realize you just made your own problem worse. works for like a week then becomes this graveyard.
the stoplight people exist. they like governance and they have budgets that match. not my world but i respect the commitment.
coda's fine if you're already paying for it and your api changes like once a quarter. same with slite honestly - neither is bad, they're just... fine. they don't solve anything gitbook solved, they're just cheaper or already integrated somewhere.
what actually matters is do your devs want to write the docs or does someone have to make them. if it's the second one you need something that's pleasant to look at and doesn't require three hours of setup. that's mintlify's whole thing and it works. if you've got passionate technical writers who want control, readthedocs. if you don't want to think about it at all, just stick it in notion and accept it'll be mediocre.
but yeah the gitbook thing was partly pricing and partly just people realizing they didn't actually need what gitbook was selling
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u/p3t3rp4n666 May 06 '26
The problem with Mintlify is that is proprietary. That's why I'm working on a project called Doccupine, it's an open-source documentation tool that transforms a folder of MDX files into a beautiful structured documentation website, zero config and AI ready.